Know Thy Players (December 2017)

Hello everyone 🙂 Welcome to my second musing of my wonderful pathfinder game. In my last posting I went over how I was nervous for my first session and how I only had two players show up. The second session was another matter all together 🙂

For the second game instead of two players I had seven players. I must confess I was nervous again due to the large group. I was also happy when everyone showed up on time ready and eager to play. I was so touched again that the game started promptly, that I gave everyone bonus experience.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty I should mention that I am currently running a home brew campaign of my own creation. The group meets on Roll20.net, and we use Team-speak to communicate with one another. My expectation was the game would last approximately three to four hours.

I would say it took about an hour to get the party together. I had to deal with seven people and how to get them all working together on the quest. It was a bit challenging for a couple of them but we made it through it 😉

They decided to take a quest by the town priest to retrieve a dwarven artifact from the dwarven kingdom. They party left the next morning and began their trek to the kingdom. I may have seemed nit-picky to my players but every night on the trip I check with them for the watch order. I did not want to rush anything and wanted to let the characters really flesh out how they handle watch.

Of course no DM worth their salt would not have an encounter ready to go 😉 So I pitted the players against Krampus and his undead reindeers.

I have to give my lovely wife a shout out for coming up with this idea 🙂 It was a nice Holiday theme encounter. I was slightly concern with how the party would handle the encounter. Would it be too tough? or to easy? I have to say it did offer them a good challenge but I could have made slightly harder 😛 The players emerged victorious with minor wounds.

So the players finally make it to the dwarven kingdom to retrieve the artifact and proceed to get upset with the dwarves because they brought no equipment with them for the transportation of the artifact. The artifact is the size of a shield with ornate markings and dwarven hammers. My players asked the dwarves for a container that could transport the artifact. The dwarves gave them a heavy steel box.

So then they wanted a wagon and mule to transport the artifact back to the town. The dwarves would give a mule but not a wagon. The dwarves response was they had no wagons to spare. The players seemed upset with this and begin arguing with the dwarves. The dwarves fired back asking why would they come to get the artifact and not bring the required equipment for transportation. The players shot back stating they were not told they needed equipment (DM note they did not ask). Finally the priest of the party took the shield and said he would carry it and began the trek back home.

On the way back home I continued to be nit-picky and asked what they were doing for watch. On the third night they were ambushed 😉 and easily defeated the attacking kobolds.

A few things about the combat:

It took forever, seven players plus the npcs

People were caught in a trap of making assumptions about what they were doing when I specifically asked

Players can be a bit harsh towards kobolds

One of the shaman manage to escape. Two archers were frozen in place, one of those two were taken hostage while the other was mauled by a player’s dog. The players were trying to figure out what to do with the hostage. One player wanted to torture it to find out why it attacked. While other players wanted the information but did not want to torture. The kobold said in broken common trial, safe, and captain.

So the players took the kobold back to town and called on the captain of the guard. The kobold then starts to speak in his native tongue at a blazing rate as they captain eyes it and the party. One party member takes this as a threat and attacks the captain by tripping him. The captain gets up and tells the player do not do that again and that he would let it slide because maybe they had a tough time.

The captain explains that the kobold wanted sanctuary and a fair trial. It was afraid the players were going to kill him. He knew the captain was fair and he would get a fair trial. The captain order the kobold and the player that tripped him to jail.

We ended there after about six hours of straight play time 🙂

I was told by multiple players that they really enjoyed the game and are awaiting the next session. I forgot how much fun it is to be the DM and weave stories into the game for the players to handle. I am having a blast and I am sure my players are having fun as well. I am still working on the next session notes but I am in a good place as of this writing.

My biggest take away from this session is the players gave me so much material to use in my next session 🙂 I LOVE IT!